“We argue here that the four factors we identify as constituting the foundation for being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership can also be seen as the foundations not only for great leadership, but also for a high quality personal life and an extraordinary organization. One can see this as a “value free” approach to values because, 1) integrity as we define it (being whole and complete) is a purely positive proposition, 2) authenticity is also a purely positive proposition (being and acting consistent with who you hold yourself out to be for others and who you hold yourself to be for yourself), 3) being committed to something bigger than oneself is also a purely positive proposition (that says nothing about what that commitment should be other than it be bigger than oneself), and 4) being cause in the matter as a declaration of the stand you take for yourself regarding everything in your life is also a purely positive proposition”

- Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen

If you are empowered, you suddenly have a lot of work to do because you have the power to do it. If you are unempowered, you are less dominated by the opportunities in front of you. In other words, you have an excuse to not do the work. You have a way out. You have the security of being able to do what you have always done and get away. If you are empowered, suddenly you must step out, innovate and create. The cost, however, of being unempowered is people’s self-expression. They always have the feeling that they have something in them that they never really gave, never really expressed. By simply revealing the payoffs and costs of being unempowered, people have a choice. They can begin to see that it is possible to make the choice to be empowered rather than to function without awareness. Empowerment requires a breakthrough and in part that breakthrough is a kind of shift from looking for a leader to a sense of personal responsibility. The problems we now have in communities and societies are going to be resolved only when we are brought together by a common sense that each of us is visionary. Each of us must come to the realization that we can function and live at the level of vision rather than following some great leader’s vision. Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader in ourselves.

- Werner Erhard, Scene Magazine/September-October 1982

The only two things in our lives are aliveness and patterns that block our aliveness. As patterns are experienced out, our lives become clearer. Things begin to make more sense. What we do makes more sense.

It’s funny, but when the alive you emerges from behind the smokescreen of all those patterns and begins to participate in life directly, life really does have purpose. It all somehow makes sense, in a fantastic way.

When you get rid of the blocks, what you have is aliveness, and when the blocks are gone, purpose emerges. There is no use searching externally for purpose, or trying to “pull it in.” It is already there. Just focus on clearing out what is between you and aliveness, so every time we create greater aliveness, the purpose is being served.Aliveness and purpose are practically the same thing. The purpose is greater aliveness, so every time we create greater aliveness, the purpose is being served.

As more and more of us get to see that the purpose is greater aliveness, it happens that all of us start to do the same thing – we start serving the purpose. Life comes on to us in our own terms, and so does the opportunity to serve.

That everyone is serving the purpose in a different way does not mean that everyone is doing something different. That’s the illusion. We do the same thing in different ways. As each of us makes our part of the whole really work, the purpose is being served.

The purpose is life and that it be, completely.
The commitment is: aliveness

- By Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard Interviews Artists and Thinkers

In early 1974, an exhaustive survey “A Self-Report Survey: Preliminary study of Participants in Erhard Seminars Training” by R. Ornstein, C. Swencionis, A. Deikman, and R. Morris was completed by 10.5% of the est graduate population. The survey asked graduates to report their experience of health and well-being after the est training and their experience of health and well-being the year before the training…. Respondents reported strong positive health and well-being changes since taking the est Standard Training, especially in the areas of psychological health and well-being.

Est Outcome Study, by Ornstein, Swencionis, Deikman & Morris

Here is an excerpt from Breaking Out of The Box which was first published in the fall 1989 issue of Benchmark Magazine: “What great executives will do in the 1990s, says Erhard, is to create different paradigms that are appropriate to the commitments in various parts of the organization. “They will be able to shape organization-wide paradigms that are appropriate to the moving sands, changing markets, changing competition and introduction of new technologies.” Erhard says that instead of waiting for a new paradigm to become apparent, we can create and invent futures that “were not going to happen anyway…The most interesting part of management is the part that’s committed to what wasn’t predictable…” more

by Hubert Dreyfus

“In the course of the training it became progressively clear to me that the experience underlying the training and the conceptualization of this experience have deep affinities with the phenomena presented and analyzed in Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time.”

“…It is directly manifest in the training that est embodies a powerful and coherent truth which transforms the quality of the lives of those who experience it. Moreover, this truth contains radically new insights into the nature of human beings.”

more

What do you mean when you say, “People don’t know they make a difference?”

“I mean literally that people think the choices they make in life don’t make any difference. They feel as if the decisions they make don’t matter much. In fact, we live in a kind of unseen agreement that nobody really makes any difference. When you do make a difference you are empowered. People are often unwilling to be empowered.”

Why would people be unwilling to be empowered?

“If you are empowered, you suddenly have a lot of work to do because you have the power to do it. If you are unempowered, you are less dominated by the opportunities in front of you. In other words, you have an excuse to not do the work. You have a way out. You have the security of being able to do what you have always done and get away.  If you are empowered, suddenly you must step out, innovate and create.  The cost, however, of being unempowered is people’s self-expression.  They always have the feeling that they have something in them that they never really gave, never really expressed.  By simply revealing the payoffs and costs of being unempowered, people have a choice.  They can begin to see that it is possible to make the choice to be empowered rather than to function without awareness.  Empowerment requires a breakthrough and in part that breakthrough is a kind of shift from looking for a leader to a sense of personal responsibility.  The problems we now have in communities and societies are going to be resolved only when we are brought together by a common sense that each of us is visionary.  Each of us must come to the realization that we can function and live at the level of vision rather than following some great leader’s vision.  Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader in ourselves.”

Werner Erhard Interviewed by Loretta Ferrier
Scene Magazine/September-October 1982

Werner Erhard has been creating transformational models and applications for organizations and individuals for more than 40 years.  He is a leading thinker currently engaged in rigorous examination and presentation of his ideas in academic and corporate communities.   He provides new paradigms to thinkers and practitioners in fields as far ranging as philosophy, business, education, psychotherapy, third world development, medicine, conflict resolution, and community building. Werner Erhard has lectured at universities and schools such as Harvard University, The University of Rochester, Erasmus Academie, University of Southern California, and MIT’s Sloan School of Management.  Werner Erhard’s current work includes BEING A LEADER AND THE EFFECTIVE EXERCISE OF LEADERSHIP An Ontological / Phenomonological Model and  INTEGRITY: A POSITIVE MODEL THAT INCORPORATES THE NORMATIVE PHENOMENA OF MORALITY, ETHICS, AND LEGALITY

Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard
Symon Productions, Inc. & Eagle Island Films, Inc.
Robyn Symon Writer, Producer and Director

Watch the full length film here.